This section describes approaches that could be employed, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or employed. Hence, unless explicitly specified otherwise, any approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application, and any approaches described in this section are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Various technologies (e.g., industrial automation, power automation, autonomous vehicles, etc.) demand highly reliable and resilient control systems. Hence, attempts to modernize such industrial automation and power automation with Internet Protocol (IP) based data networks require that the IP based data networks can transmit data packets in a reliable and resilient manner. Different attempts to satisfy such demands have included Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), Industrial Ethernet, Deterministic Networking (DetNet), Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP), Packet Replication and Elimination (PRE), and Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP).
Packet Replication (e.g., PRP, PRE) attempts to improve reliability by attempting to transmit copies of a data packet via different paths: PRE is utilized in TSN and DetNet, whereas PRP is defined by the International Standard IEC 62439-3 and is used in Ethernet-based networks. Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP) is an alternative to the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and that uses a block in a single ring segment to prevent a loop in the segment.